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Anna Julian Blog Entry |
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August 12, 2022, 4:00:09 AM August 12, 2022, 4:00:19 AM August 12, 2022, 4:00:29 AM August 12, 2022, 4:00:38 AM 8/12/22: r/SketchDaily theme, "Mushrooms/Free Draw Friday." (I did Free Draw Friday.) This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is Corporal Anna Julian, with four drawings: Hair down sans garrison cap (first drawing), hair up sans garrison cap (second drawing), hair down with garrison cap (third drawing), hair up with garrison cap (last drawing). She's one of the original "Trench Rats" (American Allies) in the story and gets involved with their original sergeant, Camo. In the earlier version of the story she had a tragic plot; now her plot's tragic as well as quite dark, as she has a particularly nasty secret. There'll be more about her later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se. I haven't much to say regarding her design but that at the last minute I decided on a hair-up look to complement the hair-down look. TUMBLR EDIT: Anna Julian is an OLLLLLD character whose history has changed drastically, most of that change being recent (and lots of fog still remaining--she's not being entirely forthcoming just yet). Her original history makes me very uncomfortable to share, but of course I have to, so here I go. My Trench Rats series has gone through several major iterations since its creation some time in childhood. It was based on a misunderstanding (albeit an intentional one, I guess) I had of a project my mother, then a seamstress, was working on. She was making what I remember as satin capes and caps with Mickey Mouse-style ears, in various colors such as black, gold, red, purple, etc. I asked her what these were and she mentioned something called the "Trench Rats." This was in the Eighties--no Internet, and we had just a set of hopelessly outdated encyclopedias at the time. Somehow, maybe by asking my dad, I learned that "trench rats" was a term for soldiers in WWI. Here's where the "intentional misunderstanding" comes in. I believe I was always aware that trench rats were a WWI thing. But for some reason I can't recall, I decided that MY Trench Rats--literal anthropomorphic rats--would be in WWII. So to anyone who might see my WWII Trench Rats and get peeved by that "mistake," rest assured it was intentional. (The reason for this has since been retconned into the plot, see below for a brief explanation.) I've since Googled this. Why would my mother be making capes and hats for "Trench Rats"? She often did sewing jobs for individuals and in this case an organization. Turns out there's some sort of fraternal-type organization devoted to the original WWI vets though obviously it's shifted its purpose by now. There are no capes to be seen...but there ARE colored hats. In this case, fezzes. Like Shriners (another group I incorporated into earlier writing of mine). The colors have to do with different ranks and they have things like white and purple, though there are also colors just associated with ranks and tassels and not fezzes, for example I think there's a "Golden Rodent." I specifically remember MOUSE-EAR CAPS in colors like red, black, and gold (incidentally, the colors of the modern German flag), but I'm willing to bet my childhood brain misremembered it all. I couldn't find out much more about these Trench Rats (their site is very basic), but I decided to not look further anyway because I might find a political angle or something that will completely ruin my childhood memory right when I'm FINALLY giving it the attention it deserves. So, that's the only connection my story has to the "real" Trench Rats as they exist today. Mickey Mouse ears were too goofy (no pun intended) even for me, so not long after these were changed into what I misassumed was the typical German headgear, that funky spiked helmet which it turns out is called the Pickelhaube (hahaha, yep, no lie.) Which it turns out was WWI wear, not WWII! So this choice here actually WAS a mistake. I also misassumed the Pickelhaube was merely the ACTUAL WWII German helmet (the Stahlhelm) just with a spike on top; you can see this remaining to this day in my art. Same as above, I retconned an explanation for these outdated helmets--these "Trench Rats" are mimicking German soldiers of the Great War in an attempt to psych out the superstitious Nazis (shortly after, they drop the pretense but keep the uniforms). The solid colors I'd seen on the outfits my mother was sewing turned into color-coded outfits my Rats wore and were named after--Black, Gold, Burgundy, etc. Kind of a clunky retcon but there you go, I tried. One of the first iterations of the Rats, if not THE first, simply involved a friend and myself pretending to be them on the elementary school playground at recess. I specifically remember old tires that had been half-buried in the ground (we'd run over these), and a bunch that had been stacked atop each other; we'd crawl inside and pretend to be imprisoned. At this point, the Rats were constantly antagonized by the bad guy, who was named Inspector Dobermann. (Initially named after the dog breed, I later gave him the name Louis, from the guy who actually bred the doberman pinscher into existence. Aside from that, he's really not based on the guy, even though an early version of him was meant to be a tax collector, which has since been dropped.) I guess this was when I settled on the story consisting mainly of good guy rodents and bad guy canines. And of course, the bad guys were Nazis. We goosestepped whenever we played them because in our fifth- or sixth-grade minds, that was what Nazis did. At this point Dobermann was a silly character subordinate to Woofwoof Hitler...sigh, I kid you not...who also was silly. There was no mention of camps or the Holocaust and I'd never heard of the SS, this was just idiotic ignorant gradeschool "fun." (For what it's worth, Dobey was constantly being bested.) (You'll notice that in these early iterations, Sgt. Camo and Cpl. Drake, the original Trench Rats leaders, didn't exist yet. Same for Didrika, Boris, Ratdog, Klemper, Senta, Helmstadt, Holt, Reseda, Wolfstein, Gerhardt, I could go on for quite a while. Indigo, Papillon, and Addy Dobermann came along not long after, though the latter two were named LaFierre and Bambush Dobermann (DON'T ASK!--I have no idea!), and "Bambush" was much more independent and outspoken and annoying. Silver was there, but not too important yet. Dr. Kammler I believe may have existed in a very rudimentary, unnamed version who later got the appellation "Dr. C." D-Day, Burgundy, and Turquoise were already important characters, though. Meanwhile, formerly important characters Red, Purple, Green, and Blue started falling by the wayside, although I've since made Blue, along with Silver, Turquoise, Indigo, Copper, and a few others, one of the very original group of soldiers who were subsumed into the Trench Rats. And a very few characters, such as "Mam Rat" (oh God I won't get into it), were completely scrapped.) Going into junior high, the story gradually began to darken. It went through a weird phase of shoehorning female equivalents of the male characters into the plot, in the person of the "Trench Mice." Yep. ;_; They simply had the same color names only with "Y" on the end--Sgt. Reddy Mouse and Cpl. Pinky Mouse were the two main characters. Fortunately, the Trench Mice phase didn't last long, and it was long ago completely dropped. Dobermann, however, started undergoing a makeover, becoming much more mysterious and ominous a character, whose exact motivations and even alignment remained unknown to me until literally...*checks notes*...December 2, 2021. Yep, I took a note when his purpose in the story finally revealed itself to me. I was in junior high from 1989-1991--the time period when the Berlin Wall fell!--so look how long it took for Dobey to finally open up to me. THIRTY YEARS! About damn time! (The story series was much more broken up at this point, and there was meant to be an uber-edgy novel called Inspector Dobermann To The Core, but like the Mice, this has since thankfully been scrapped.) ('Nother odd detail. Around this point, since Dobey was becoming more serious, the "comic relief" consisted of a pair of bumbling Nazis codenamed Nightstalker (or just Stalker) and Deserta. Don't ask, I have no memory how they got these names. Stalker, I believe, was a doberman pinscher and Deserta was a German shepherd whose voice and personality were modeled after a favorite science teacher of mine. (Hi, Mr. Scott!) Stalker was the more serious of the two, kind of short tempered and a bit prissy, and for some reason I seem to recall him with glasses; Deserta was the bigger, dumber one, not as ill tempered as Stalker but kind of clumsy. These two, like the Trench Mice and (thank God) Woofwoof Hitler, were phased out...or so I thought. Look at the characters of the current version and you'll find a pair, the smarter one with glasses, and the big dumb one--the first is even still a doberman pinscher, although the second is now a Great Dane. It certainly wasn't intentional, and I didn't even notice it at first, but it really does look like Nightstalker and Deserta were effectively replaced by Lt. Gunter Hesse and Master Sgt. Theodor Schulte.) Schavich is another character who underwent major changes. He was conflated quite a bit with Woofwoof in the earlier stuff, and was very goofy and unintimidating. (Woofwoof is the one who says something similar in the existing text, but Schavich also was primarily known to yell stuff like, "Zose--dirty--TRENCH RATS!!" Yes, I had to phonetically write out the German accent, which only Woofwoof and Schavich seemed to possess... 🤔 ) He's since replaced "Hitler" as the primary rodent antagonist (though in truth, the primary antagonists in this story are nebulous, I think the main bad guy is actually the SS itself rather than any one individual), become more serious, and is on the verge of a name change ("Schavitz" is much more appropriate than the made-up--and Russian-sounding--Schavich). But anyway...Anna Julian is a character who I believe came about during this darker intermediary period. Her story is told in the first known written version of The Trench Rats--not the first version, the first WRITTEN version. (It claims to be based on an even earlier version, but that's not extant, plus I don't remember it.) And after digging up the typeout (and grimacing at awful dialogue like "I hate this. I just hate war." "Aw, these Nazis'll give up soon." "Yeah, but it's still stupid. Putting people in concentration camps just because they worship a little differently? That's dumb"--OH GOD MAKE IT STOP), I realize Julian's story was where the original text ended. I remember it was extremely difficult for me to write; and even to share it here, despite all the other stuff I've shared, is really hard, too. Still, here's the original text, with my commentary removed. This was written over a period of time but is dated November(?) 1990. Please keep that in mind--at least when I started this text, I'd just turned 14 years old. And my writing at 14 years old is absolutely dreadful. "We're here," he said. "Now what's this about, Turquoise?" His older friend heaved a great breath and let it out. "There's something I've been carrying with me for years Gold, and now I want to get it off my chest before I lose it." "Why now?" Gold asked. "It's because of the grenade explosion," Turquoise replied. "When I woke up I thought of how close I came to getting it, and how next time I might not be so lucky so this secret would die with me. So I thought I'd tell it to you. You're tougher than an old bird like me. Sit down and make yourself comfortable if that's at all possible." Gold did as he was told and Turquoise, with the West Wing entrance looming as his background, began his story. "Of course it was a very long time ago when all of the original Rats were here, before the Wing was closed," he started. "We had a totally different sergeant, a totally different corporal, different lance-corporals and privates. Even Blue was rather new and he was still a private first-class. You probably wouldn't know this, but back then we had another thing that was totally different; we had a female Trench Rat." "A lady Rat?" Gold interjected. Turquoise nodded. "And I don't mean like Mam either. She was just like us--only more like Burgundy. She never did any real fighting but was more into Burgundy's line of work." "You mean doctoring and bookwork." A nod. "But nonetheless she was a Trench Rat, like you or me. Now, how do you think the others' feelings would be about that?" "A lady Rat?... I guess they wouldn't like it too much." "You're right. Barely anyone liked the idea. Most hated it from the start but the sergeant wasn't for sexual discrimination and let her enter. I suppose you can imagine the jeers and remarks she had to take." "You bet I can." "There were only a few of us who took it in stride. I myself was one of them, and Burgundy, and--" "Let me guess: Blue and Doomsday." "Right again. So of course we were about the only ones whom she really became acquainted with. And that was mostly just on a professional level. This is a cold, cold world. I suppose she learned that, also. In a terrible way." "What do you mean?" Now Turquoise acted almost guiltily. "Afterwards she told me most of the story, so I'll piece it together. As best as I can remember, several of the Rats were apparently growing bolder in their actions. They disliked how well the lady Rat and the sergeant got along. Maybe they misinterpreted their casual friendship, for that's all it was, and decided to do something about it. Do 'something' they did--one night three of them accosted her in the empty West Wing, first pretending to be friendly, then becoming more threatening, and finally raping her and leaving her behind." Gold shuddered. "I never thought they'd do something so low!" "That's not the end of it. I'm not certain how long after it was, but later that night or the next she came to my quarters and cried to be let in. There she told me everything, except who the Rats were; she didn't know their names but could only point them out. She said that if she told anyone they had threatened to get rid of her in some way--I don't know if by actual killing or not--and further stated that during the attack she had seen another Trench Rat, a great distance away at the entrance, notice what was happening and quickly dart away. I had her go to bed, telling her we could look through the files tomorrow after she had settled down a little more. She never got to identify any of the four Rats though because directly after she disappeared." "Disappeared?" Gold said with great surprise. Turquoise nodded a third time. "The next day she was gone. There were signs that she never even made it to her quarters. Later in the day while we searched one of the Rats came to me and asked if she had visited and told me anything unusual. I said no, she'd just dropped in to give me something, but hinted that she had been acting oddly, as if she were afraid of something. This seemed to shake him up a little, but he left and it was supposed then that she, finding barracks life too hard, had gone AWOL. Not long after, before I could figure out how to tell my strange story to the sergeant, there was the trench raid, when the poison gas killed off nearly all of the Rats. The Rat who had so oddly questioned me was killed, and the sergeant's body, if he too died, was never found." "What about the other three?" Gold asked. "I don't know. The Rat who visited me seemed to have several friends waiting, and I recognized them as killed or missing in action, and I never did find out about the last Rat." Gold was silent for a moment. "He was the only one...?" Turquoise closed his eyes and nodded. "The only witness. The only one who could tell who the attackers were. And I don't know if he's dead or alive." He heaved a sigh of helplessness. "He could be almost anybody! He could be Purple, or Blue, or D-Day, or any one of those scores who were killed in the trenches or taken prisoner. I don't even know who he is." Another silence. "What happened then?" "There were only about two dozen of us, so we cleared out the rooms of the West Wing--one of which was her original quarters--and had it boarded up. I had only several days to look around and try to find anything, any little clue as to what happened. She couldn't have gone AWOL. I know she wouldn't. I asked D-Day once if he thought she'd deserted, and even he--someone who has no idea of what really happened--said it seemed doubtful. But nothing ever turned up, and the West Wing was closed down, and now here it is." He took a deep breath again. "You can't possibly imagine how it feels to finally let that all out. All these years I've never told anybody. I didn't know just what to tell them." "You've done more than a good job of telling me," Gold said. Turquoise managed a weak smile. "I suppose that's because I knew I had to tell someone before I burst. I can't help feeling guilty, like I never did enough." Gold reached across and patted his shoulder. "Nothing's your fault. Even if you would've told the sergeant probably nothing could be done. I know I would have gone crazy by now holding that in!" His friend shrugged. "Maybe I have!" Additionally, here's a note I added when I typed out the above some years back (last modified in 2018, though it likely predates that): Note--Turquoise's tale of the only female Trench Rat, and the ruined West Wing, remain in the current storyline in modified format. The female Trench Rat, who is unnamed here, goes by the name Anna Julian and in the current storyline she DID disappear mysteriously around the same time as the gas attack...but I decided that the story that Turquoise tells here is too ludicrous, hence, Julian's disappearance must have another meaning behind it. Seeing as Julian plays no part in the current story, I have yet to come up with this backstory. In the current story, there is ANOTHER female Trench Rat--Lyndsey Skye--who serves Burgundy as a nurse. So as you can see, Julian's story, mostly intact and same as the original version, still existed as of the previous (circa 2000) version of The Trench Rats, but the outcome had yet to be resolved. This has only just started to happen but is still quite foggy, as I'm finding Anna Julian (who at some point acquired the rank of corporal) to be quite secretive. She's not pouring out her story to me like the others so far. In the new version, there may still be a rape involved, though not at the hands of the Trench Rats, and possibly it's just an attempt. Maybe even it's staged as a ruse for her to first meet another new character, Liam Morgan (no rank yet). But let me back up a bit. From what little I know so far--and this could still change--Cpl. Julian is at first uninvolved with the newly formed Trench Rats, but is stationed with the British just inside Germany (weird, I know, but my entire version of this war is weird); she often acts as a sort of liaison. Morgan takes notice of her somewhat meek, subdued nature, and gets the idea she might be rather impressionable. He also somehow learns that she harbors vague feelings that, while odious, are not that uncommon considering the time period. Namely, she's not that fond of Jews. So already the sweet innocent early version of Anna Julian is no more. Morgan makes a plan to recruit Julian for his own purposes. Why would he need to, you may ask?--he's a member of the British military, and they're already allies, right? Well...not ENTIRELY right. Because Morgan himself has been recruited, by the Waffen-SS. He's one of a handful of British soldiers who work for the Nazis. (This here is VERY VERY VERY loosely based on a unit that actually existed, the British Free Corps--British POWs who fought for the Waffen-SS. Take note, however, that in my version, this includes not just infantry soldiers but apparently also spies. Morgan isn't wearing German insignia and fighting alongside the Germans in plain sight. He went back to the British but is working for the Nazis, undercover. So...a double agent? Maybe? Double agents confuse the hell out of me, suffice it to say he's British, but is spying for the Nazis, but is pretending to still work for the British.) This may be where a staged assault attempt takes place, but I'm not sure. If it does, Morgan intervenes to "save" Julian and thus not just introduce himself, but create a favorable impression as a "hero." They slowly get to know each other, as she's not the trusting sort, yet his protective nature wins her over. (Yes, this version of Julian is quite weak willed. There's a reason I don't write many female characters, they used to always end up like this. But this is why Morgan targets her.) She doesn't just fall in love with him, she practically becomes his (mostly) willing slave. He's recruiting her for a purpose, but he thinks nothing of testing her to see just how much she's willing to take, and the answer is just about anything; even when she protests, he manages to convince her. So Anna Julian is basically putty in his hands and he successfully recruits her as a spy for the Waffen-SS, radicalizing her with ever more hateful and extreme thoughts. He convinces her to attempt to join and spy on the fledgling Trench Rats, whom the Nazis have realized are not actually Great War ghosts. The other British troops Morgan serves with have no idea about his actual alignment; they approve Julian's request to act as a liaison to the Americans, as the SS hopes that she'll be allowed to join their battalion and reveal its location to the Nazis. It's a bit complicated, however. The Trench Rats are very secretive, and have a strict policy regarding revealing the location of their HQ. ONLY Trench Rats are allowed to know--and Julian isn't a Trench Rat. (One notable exception to this rule is French partisan Papillon, who notified his own people about the site--but he found this out on his own, while spying on the newcomers from above. He's the story's lone bat character, and this serves him well.) Doesn't matter even when she's granted permission to work alongside them--whenever she's transported to Trench Rats HQ, she needs to literally be blindfolded, have headphones put on, and placed in the back of a covered truck or a closed compartment on their transport canines. Seems extreme, yes, but considering the sensitive nature of the Rats' work--stealing Nazi documents in an effort to derail their massive medical experimentation project--they can't take chances. Julian finds herself frustrated. Morgan decides it's time to amp up their effort, and tells Julian to attempt to seduce the corporal, Drake. She's reluctant--she's already involved with Morgan, plus, Drake is Jewish, which she finds odious--she has enough of a time just putting on a kind face around him--but Morgan wheedles her into it. The effort fails miserably--turns out Drake is much more interested in Papillon than in her. o_o; Oops. Julian dejectedly informs her handler. Morgan instructs her to target Camo, then: He's studied the file the Allgemeine-SS put together on Camo (as Capt. Himmel explains in the sequel story, they attempt to keep files on e-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y), and thinks he's a better target anyway, being a widower who lost his wife and young daughter tragically (in an accident which also left him hooked on morphine) and has never remarried since. He's in pain, and grieving, and is likely lonely. Julian makes a move on him. It's a VERY gradual process, but this time around, it works. Well...only sort of. Camo does fall for the romantic ruse...but he doesn't give up any intel. Julian's good at being subtle but Camo's even better at keeping secrets, and despite them getting close he doesn't tell her the location of headquarters. He does, however, put in a good word for her with the others at the British outpost, and they get in touch with Camo's superiors in the US and start discussing options to have Julian officially join the Trench Rats. Eventually she's approved...and of course, is given her own room at headquarters. So in the end, no, Camo never cracks and gives up the secret to the enemy...but yes...he helps let the enemy right in the front door. This whole time, Julian been reporting to the SS on her progress. Although she's working for the Waffen-SS, the intel she gathers goes through the Allgemeine-SS, who as I mentioned keep records on every-freaking-thing. They're also the ones in charge of that big Nazi medical experiment the Trench Rats are attempting to stop. This is Projekt Weltuntergang, or as the Allies know it, Project Doomsday. It's already responsible for the capture of at least two American soldiers: one from the initial group with Indigo, Silver, et al., since codenamed Doomsday or D-Day himself, and Teal Rat. (Though I believe Teal is one of this group, too.) In an immense stroke of bad luck, Teal was captured when D-Day was rescued. It's discovered that success of the serum used in the project depends on the subject having a particular very rare blood type mutation. D-Day has this mutation. Teal does not. Therefore, he won't be useful as a test subject. Therefore, he's more likely to be subjected to torture for information. So by now, the Trench Rats are worried that Teal could be the one to end up revealing the location of headquarters. They're right about the torture--Dr. Kammler, or "C" as the Allies know him, is incredibly pissed off to lose his most successful test subject, so he takes that out on Teal. They're right about the attempts to extract information. They're wrong about Teal being the one to reveal this info; wonder of wonders, he manages to hold out despite everything C throws at him. It's Anna Julian who reveals this information...Teal's just the poor guy who gets the blame. There's an interesting development when Julian visits with the SS to give them information. She gets the chance to see project headquarters and another test subject named Kolten. Kolten is considered "blöd," or stupid/slow, yet has the right blood type, so is a perfect initial subject, along with a Jewish prisoner named Jakob Wolfstein. They both see Julian talking with members of the SS and saluting. Kolten, who busies himself drawing and building with blocks--he's very skilled at both, possessing a sort of eidetic memory--makes a sketch of Julian, and shows it to his father when he visits. His father soon after discovers that this woman is with the Trench Rats...apparently as a spy. She's close to their sergeant. And now she knows the location of headquarters, information she's already given to the SS, who plan to make use of it. Kolten's father is SS, so this information really shouldn't be too surprising to him. The thing is, Kolten's father is Capt. Otto Himmel...who's been secretly working to destroy the project from the inside. Dr. Kammler is his brother-in-law, and he attempted to have Himmel murdered so he could gain custody of his disabled son for use in his experiment. Himmel survived with the aid of the Diamond Network, a resistance group; they advised him on how to get back at Kammler, though Himmel's sole motivation all along has been to protect Kolten--he even joined the SS in a twisted effort to keep Kolten safe from them, assuming (incorrectly) that they wouldn't target the family of a member. Himmel nonetheless has been using info the Network gave him to sabotage Kammler's experiment; he hasn't been successful at ruining the original serum, but he's prevented Kammler from being able to further adapt it, causing the project to stall and the SS to mull over cutting funding. (Ironically, Himmel is in charge of overseeing the project, meaning he reports on it to his boss, who reports to the SS bigwigs who determine if the project gets funded.) The loss of Doomsday is a serious blow, as he was the only test subject who could legitimately be considered a full success. Himmel has figured out that he can't do this on his own--the Trench Rats are his best hope for the project to be dismantled. Therefore, learning that one of them is actually a spy for the SS alarms him. He studies her file, and on another visit overhears her saying "useless eaters"--a Nazi term for disabled persons who are viewed as contributing nothing to society, therefore are best "euthanized"--or, more accurately, executed. Himmel knows this term applies to his own son. And hearing Julian say it, he knows exactly what sort of person she really is, and she can't be allowed to remain free and alive if Kolten is to be protected. He has no way to alert the Trench Rats to what's to come, as he isn't involved in the Waffen-SS plan to attack Trench Rats Headquarters, doesn't know what form the attack will take, when it'll be, anything. All he can do is wait helplessly until news of it comes back to them. The attack is devastating--about a third of the Rats are killed and headquarters is badly damaged--but it's not completely incapacitating, as two of the five companies manage to fight off a ground attack while a third escapes harm completely--only the two companies led by Camo and Drake don't fare well, bearing the brunt of the casualties. The sergeant and corporal are captured, as well...along with Anna Julian, perfectly playing her role as one of them. The Allgemeine-SS wants to send a representative to question the captives; Himmel requests this and is approved. Therefore he's the one Camo, Drake, and Julian are brought before to be interrogated. Himmel isn't interested in interrogation, though. He paces back and forth in front of the three (the other SS members behind him murmuring about Drake's Star of David necklace and theorizing what sort of test subject he might make), aiming his gun at each in turn and offering a few threatening comments before stopping in front of Drake and pointing the gun at him. Drake shuts his eyes. Then Himmel abruptly swings the gun to the side and shoots Julian in the forehead. Needless to say this isn't at all what anyone, even the other SS officers, expected. Drake jerks aside in surprise while Camo jumps to his feet and charges Himmel, only to be promptly knocked down and restrained by the other officers; Drake is struck in the head and knocked out when he attempts to see to Julian, and the two are carried away. Himmel is left needing to explain his own actions to the Waffen-SS. All he can say is he had reason to believe Julian was funneling information about the SS back to the Trench Rats--she wasn't, but she's a traitor to the Allies so who's to say she wasn't double-crossing the SS as well? He's on the verge of being harshly reprimanded--or worse--when his boss, Maj. Ludolf Jäger, pulls strings to defend him, insisting that he's always been honest and thinks things through and has no reason to lie now. (Jäger has no idea about any of Himmel's subversive activities.) If he suspected Julian was ratting (no pun intended) on the SS, then he must have had good reason, and the Allgemeine-SS backs him up. Liam Morgan and the Waffen-SS are angry but back off, and Himmel narrowly averts personal disaster. (Privately, though, Jäger laments him "losing his head" and meddling in Waffen-SS affairs, saying, "I much prefer you behind a desk, pushing papers like you're paid to do!") Camo and Drake are transported to Project Doomsday headquarters where Dr. Kammler is all too eager to try out his serum on them although their blood types are wrong; Camo is quickly relegated to prisoner of war status (Sonderhäftling, a special detainee status which often--though sometimes not, as in Teal's case--leads to better treatment), while Drake disappears into the project as a test subject, which pretty much means torture. Anna Julian's death is quickly brushed off to avoid embarrassment or retribution, and the Trench Rats go on believing that Teal was in fact the source of the leak. Himmel, meanwhile, starts suffering nightmares and insomnia over the incident: He doesn't want to be a murderer, he's even managed to avoid being directly involved in the SS's constant mass killing (though given their scope, he can't help but be indirectly involved, through his knowledge of SS activities and his oversight of Project Doomsday); despite his previous service in the military he's become a sort of closet pacifist, and having to do what he did to Julian, no matter how necessary he deemed it (to prevent her contributing information for future killings), wears on his conscience. An additional detail only adds to his distress: He recognizes Camo beyond his position in the Trench Rats--they've met before. Years ago, aiming their guns at each other across no man's land. Both of them fought in the Great War and happened to briefly encounter each other, long enough for Camo to wonder over how young Himmel looked ("He was barely more than a kid," he tells Drake earlier in the story, which is true--Himmel entered the army underaged, at 14, so was around 17 when he and Camo met) before attempting to shoot him, a shell exploding nearby being the only thing to prevent this. Camo was knocked on his back into the trench and briefly incapacitated, giving Himmel the chance to shoot him, yet he again hesitated, and again Camo attempted to take a shot--only for his rifle to jam. Again leaving him wide open to be killed. Yet again, Himmel didn't take the shot, and instead left as Camo tried drawing his pistol; by the time he climbed out of the trench, Himmel was gone. Camo has since recognized Himmel as well, from a brief run-in they had with each other earlier in the story; he recognizes the "barely more than a kid" who refused to kill him not only once, not twice, but three times. ("No idea what his reason was (for not taking the shot)," he tells Drake.) And Himmel recognizes the American soldier he couldn't bring himself to shoot, even while Camo kept trying to shoot him. He read Camo's file as well. Himmel is also a widower who despite constant pressure from the SS has refused to get remarried, and in a way he also "lost" his child, when he was forced to place Kolten in an institution and wasn't allowed to visit him for years, then lost custody of him to Project Doomsday. He feels that he understands Camo a little, and hates having to be the one to wound him all over again. But if this is what it takes to keep Kolten safe, then it's what he had to do. Himmel does manage to set a couple of things (somewhat) right. He ensures that Camo is able to escape custody, even though Camo has no idea he's involved. And although he can't do much to prevent their torture, he intervenes several times to make sure both Drake and Teal remain alive long enough to be rescued (although Teal ends up committing suicide afterwards). He and Dr. Kammler are captured at the same time as the rescue, and Teal turns on Kammler and kills him for the horrific abuse he suffered; Himmel shocks the Trench Rats by laughing at the murder. Drake and Teal are taken to the Trench Rats' medical ward, which is where Teal stabs himself in the neck, in full view of Drake, who has to reassure the rattled surgeon, Burgundy, that he won't attempt the same. Cpl. Gold Rat (Drake's successor) and LC Mahogany Rat take Teal's body and go in search of a place to bury him. While searching they meet an unknown party who always wears a gas mask and German-style uniform, though seems to be allied with the resistance; he seems distressed after learning the identity of the body, but signs for them to follow him as he leads them to a suitable burial place. After a long complicated trek the three arrive at a waterfall and dig a grave nearby. When Gold remarks on just how far they had to walk, the gas-masked party says in a muffled voice, "He found this waterfall." The two Rats are puzzled how the unknown party is familiar with Teal until he removes the gas mask. Gold still has no idea who he is, but Mahogany recognizes Camo from his personnel file photo. He was warned by the Diamond Network, after his escape, that returning to Trench Rats' Headquarters could make it even more of a target yet again, and since the Rats had a new sergeant, he might serve a better purpose helping the resistance, which is what he's been up to since then. Learning of the rescue and of how project headquarters was taken over, he decides it's time to drop the act and return to Trench Rats HQ. The other Rats were stunned by the return of Teal and Drake, both of whom they'd assumed were dead; they're stunned all over again when Camo returns as well. Himmel is still in their custody, and Camo demands to see him; although not in great shape, Drake accompanies him, knowing exactly why he wants to meet him. Camo demands an answer from Himmel regarding why he shot Cpl. Julian; Himmel only responds that he doesn't believe Camo really wants the truth. Infuriated, Camo attempts to shoot him, but is stopped at the last minute by Drake, who knocks his hand aside when Himmel blurts out the phrase, "Eight burning lamps!" Drake explains that a guard at project headquarters had told him this phrase without explaining what it meant or who sent it; Himmel using it shows that he colluded with the guard to help Drake, and it's made clear he was involved in ensuring Camo's escape as well. When Camo again demands an answer--why would he help them, yet kill Julian?--Himmel promises to tell them everything, but only if they take him to meet Kolten, who was rescued by the Trench Rats earlier while being transported by the Nazis. No one understands the request, but Himmel refuses to speak another word, so they decide it can't hurt, and they take him to the farmhouse where Kolten has been staying with an older couple. Upon meeting, Kolten asks Himmel if he'll be returning to stay with Dr. Kammler, or "Doctor-Father," as he was trained to refer to him. Himmel replies no, Kammler is gone for good and the project is over. Kolten then asks if this means he'll be going with Himmel, or "Hauptsturmführer-Father," instead. Not only did the Trench Rats have no idea that Kolten is Himmel's son, but Himmel wasn't aware Kolten knew this, either--he's been institutionalized since he was a toddler, and Himmel was prevented from having contact with him for years; even after he was granted access to him again (by showing up in his new SS uniform and threatening to be let in), he never mentioned being Kolten's father, as the doctor had told him it could confuse Kolten. Despite being slow, however, Kolten really isn't stupid, and he's known exactly who Himmel is all this time: Himmel was the only person to consistently show him love. Himmel replies that Kolten can't come with him as he's not sure what will happen to him now, but he'll return to him if/when he can, and he loves him. They embrace and Himmel then goes with the Trench Rats without protest. Keeping his word, Himmel tells the Trench Rats everything he knows about Project Doomsday and his role in it, including how he worked to sabotage it following his rescue by the Diamond Network. He tried what he could to keep Kammler's captives alive, and to aid Camo's escape. He's also been aiding Lt. Ratdog and PFC Godfrey Klemper, two members of the Wehrmacht, who have secretly turned against the Nazis themselves. Camo is even more confused--again, why would he do everything he can to help the Allies, at the risk of being considered a traitor, yet then execute Anna Julian? Himmel reluctantly replies that she wasn't who they thought she was, and lays out all the details, including Teal's insistence, to the very end, that although he did some other awful things to try to avoid further torture, he never gave away the location of headquarters. Camo finds all of this nearly impossible to believe, but Himmel sticks to his story even when subjected to a hasty military trial shortly following the war, and several others--including Wolfstein and even Drake--testify that they never saw him harm others, even that he was trying to help them. (Additionally, Wolfstein confirms Julian's visit to project headquarters.) His killing of Anna Julian is problematic--still technically an extrajudicial execution--but they take the extenuating circumstances into consideration, including the likely possibility that she would have contributed further info that would have led to more deaths, such as those of the rest of the Trench Rats, and Kammler's test subjects--Drake, Wolfstein, Teal, Kolten, and others. He's acquitted of committing any war crimes, though found guilty of belonging to a criminal organization (the SS) and is stripped of his military titles and honors. He's allowed to leave, free; he decides to go to Kolten, who's been staying with a civilian couple since being liberated by the Trench Rats previously. On his way out he stops by Camo, who's been watching the proceedings, and murmurs, "I know you cared about her. I'm sorry you had to find out this way," and departs. Camo and Himmel have a bit more of a story after this, though it takes Camo a while to work through his anger and guilt over the role he inadvertently played in the attack on HQ, and Himmel deals with some ghosts of his own. Anna Julian exits the storyline relatively early--toward the end of the first main story--but casts a long shadow behind her. [Anna Julian 2022 [Friday, August 12, 2022, 4:00:09 AM]] [Anna Julian 2022 2 [Friday, August 12, 2022, 4:00:19 AM]] [Anna Julian 2022 3 [Friday, August 12, 2022, 4:00:29 AM]] [Anna Julian 2022 4 [Friday, August 12, 2022, 4:00:38 AM]] |